College Hoops 2k8

Rating Everyone Genre sports Publisher 2K Sports External Links Offiical College Hoops Website

Continuing its legacy as what I would consider the best college sports franchise on the market, College Hoops 2K8 builds on its already successful formula. It doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel, but rather successfully adds some additional depth to a game already as deep as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Gameplay hasn’t changed much from last year’s version. Controls remain quite basic, with only a flick of the right analog stick giving you the perfect shot, while a singular button is designated for passing, “turbo,” or special juke moves. Similar to previous versions of the game, players can call plays on the fly. The addition of play mapping, however, makes running that point-guard isolation play all the easier. Once a play is called that requires some motion, rather than having to have the play memorized, circles and lines appear on the court, guiding players in where they should put the ball. The game basically is turned in to a coach’s dry erase clipboard and really helps guide players through those tough situations.

Returning to College Hoops 2K8 is the Legacy mode. Players must begin their careers coaching at a lowly school, such as Western Illinois, Alcorn, or Dartmouth. As they advance through the season, coaches must find ways to not only win games, but also improve their player’s overall attributes by running a series of practice drills every week. Also, coaches must work on keeping their team’s unity up as well as recruiting new high schoolers from around the country to come and play at their school in the future. Once the season is done, players can continue on improving their selected school or can accept an offer to coach at another school. As player’s progress through successful seasons, they are offered better positions at better schools. So while you may not be able to play with Duke in Legacy mode right away, if you keep succeeding with the smaller schools, you’ll end up there in no time.

A new feature added to 2K8 is the new “sixth man advantage.” A nice addition, this new gameplay element helps to shift the tides of a game in your favor when the going gets rough. A little bar at the bottom of the screen indicates how close you are to obtaining your full sixth man advantage. Largely based on the crowd’s reactions to the game (the more into it the the crowd is, the more filled your bar gets, whether it be your home crowd or the rough crowd on the road), the sixth man advantage can give a team a great boost if obtained during the right time.

While the sound is great throughout College Hoops 2K8, the graphics appeared to me to have somehow declined in quality. My first game I played was against Hawaii in Hawaii. The players looked fine but the crowd appeared to be pretty abysmal to me. There were instances where the crowd sitting closest to the screen in the front row were all turned around for some reason and started facing the camera for nearly a minute, as though they were peering through and watching my every move. It was bizarre and unsettling. While it is really a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things, it is still something that I noticed that turned me off, especially considering the college basketball experience is so largely based on the crowd atmosphere. If the game delivers an abnormal crowd experience, then it really won’t deliver the full college hoops feel.

Overall, College Hoops 2K8 does give players the feel of an authentic college basketball game. Crowds cheer and chant and react to plays. Fight songs blare in the background during times outs. Players rebound, drive to the basket, and dive for loose balls with the heart and intensity of a real college athlete. Unfortunately, a few minor flaws prevent College Hoops 2K8 from making it to the pros at this time.